Biomechanics of Balance and Mobility Lab

The Biomechanics of Balance and Mobility Lab explores how individuals control and maintain dynamic stability during normal activities of daily living and under situations that pose a considerable balance challenge.

This information is used to identify the biomechanical factors that may lead to increased fall-risk among clinical populations, such as older adults and stroke survivors. This research helps inform the development of exercise-based balance rehabilitation programs, targeted at an individual’s specific control challenges.

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Biomechanics of Balance and Mobility Lab

Overview

  • Our goals

    Dr. Singer uses kinetic, kinematic and electromyographic outcome measures to understand human stability control during tasks such as quiet unperturbed standing, compensatory stepping and steady-state gait. 

    The laboratory is equipped with a 16-camera Vicon motion analysis system, 4 walkway-embedded Kistler force platforms, a Bertec fully-instrumented split-belt treadmill, two 8-channel Bortec EMG bioamplifiers, a GAITRite portable pressure sensitive walkway and various strain-gauge based force transducers.

  • Key areas of research

    • Biomechanics
    • Neuromechanics
    • Aging
    • Postural control
    • Dynamic stability
    • Human cocomotion

Investigators

  • Jonathan Singer

    Primary investigator

    Dr. Jonathan Singer's research aims to understand the fundamental neuromechanical mechanisms by which humans maintain stability and understand why clinical populations, such as older adults and stroke survivors, experience challenges with stability control.

  • Students

    • Haydn Christiansen Burdeny
    • Laine Dux
    • Daria McKennitt
    • Asher Mendelsohn
    • Ramius Sy

Projects

Characterising Whole Body Stability Control

Whole-body centre of mass dynamics and whole-body stability are dictated by global factors such as the magnitude, direction and timing of the net ground reaction force arising from the interaction of both limbs with the ground. This series of experiments, performed across a range of tasks, simultaneously quantifies the cause of instability (i.e. force generation) and the subsequent effect (i.e. centre of mass kinematics), to understand the proactive and reactive components of stability control. This work helps identify the origins of instability among individuals at risk of falling.

Modelling Individual-Limb Contributions to Dynamic Stability

While whole-body stability is ultimately regulated by global kinetic variables, such variables themselves arise from more local variables acting at the level of the individual limb, joint and muscle. This line of work aims to understand how local, joint- and muscle-level, variables directly influence dynamic stability, as measured through centre of mass kinematics. Identifying the links between local biomechanical variables and whole-body stability is a necessary precursor to the development of targeted exercise-based balance interventions and technologies.

Understanding Neuromechanical Contributions to Dynamic Stability

Stability control results from a complex relationship between sensory systems, which detect instability, and the mechanical system, which carries out and constrains movement. Age-related alterations to either the neural or the mechanical system can lead to challenges in maintaining stability and a greater risk of falls. We have previously demonstrated that the CNS is capable of recalibrating its internal representation of lower limb segmental mechanical properties to achieve coordinated intersegmental kinematics during both balance and locomotion. Future work will aim to develop novel metrics capable of quantifying the role of specific sensory information in guiding reactive stability control.

Publications

Full list of publications.

2025

Yash Ramesh Rawal, Kathryn M. Sibley, Jonathan C. Singer. Age-related changes in mediolateral stability control during walking. Gait & Posture, Volume 119, 2025, Pages 95-101, ISSN 0966-6362.

 

2022

Sundeep K. Rakhra, Jonathan C. Singer. The effect of ageing on between-limb centre of pressure coordination in standing balance: Is there evidence for reactive control challenges among older adults? Human Movement Science, Volume 86, 2022, 103019, ISSN 0167-9457.

2021

Yash Ramesh Rawal, Jonathan C. Singer. The influence of net ground reaction force orientation on mediolateral stability during walking. Gait & Posture, Volume 90, 2021, Pages 73-79, ISSN 0966-6362.

2020

Saleh M. Aloraini, Cheryl M. Glazebrook, Sepideh Pooyania, Kathryn M. Sibley, Jonathan Singer, Steven Passmore. An external focus of attention compared to an internal focus of attention improves anticipatory postural adjustments among people post-stroke. Gait & Posture, Volume 82, 2020, Pages 100-105, ISSN 0966-6362.


Sweeny, M., Inness, E. L., Singer, J., Habib Perez, O., Danells, C., Chandra, T., … Mochizuki, G. The Toronto Concussion Study: a longitudinal analysis of balance deficits following concussion in community-dwelling adults. Brain Injury, 34(10), 1384–1394.

Aloraini, S. M., Gelley, G., Glazebrook, C., Sibley, K. M., Singer, J., & Passmore, S. Motor Behavior Concepts in the Study of Balance: A Scoping Review. Journal of Motor Behavior, 52(1), 97–121.